editor's picks

James Harden (men's basketball - USA)

Posted: July 20, 2012

2007-2009 Sun Devil James Harden (men's basketball - USA) was named the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year for the 2011-12 season as part of the Oklahoma City Thunder squad that finished as the runners-up in the NBA Finals to the Miami Heat. On the season, Harden led the league in bench scoring with 16.8 points per game on 49.1 percent shooting while also adding 4.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game in 31.4 minutes per game he is the youngest member of the men's U.S. roster. At ASU, Harden was an consensus first-team All-American on essentially every major list released after his sophomore campaign in which he led the Pac-10 in scoring (20.1), 20-point games (18) and steals per game (1.69) and was eighth in the league at 4.2 assists per game. Selected the Pac-10 Conference's Player of the Year in 2009, during his two ASU seasons he scored 1,309 points, and averaged 19.0 ppg., 5.4 rpg. and 3.7 apg. He became just the third sophomore in Pac-10 history to earn Pac-10 Player of the Year accolades, joining Jason Kidd (1993-94) and Mike Bibby (1997-98).